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6 Ways to Use Veterinary Analytics to Improve Client Retention

Written by Angela Beal, DVM

Veterinary data analytics examines information collected as clinics go through normal workflows and operations to identify patterns and assess overall practice performance. Most of this data is part of your practice management software system, where you can typically aggregate it into comprehensive reports.

When you use reporting to analyze key metrics, you can learn to understand client behavior, improve the client experience, and make decisions that encourage pet owners to keep coming back. Here are six practical ways to use your hospital’s data to improve veterinary client retention.

1. Track retention metrics

To start, here are some of the most useful client retention metrics you may consider tracking:

- Client retention rate — The percentage of clients who return within a set time period

- Average visits per client — How frequently a client returns in a given period

- Average revenue per client — How much each client generates in a given period or per visit

- Client lifetime value — Projected total revenue a client will generate throughout their relationship with the practice

Client retention metrics provide a baseline, allowing you to identify areas for improvement and measure success in your efforts to achieve them.

2. Simplify appointment scheduling

Appointment data can provide valuable insights into popular times on the schedule, which appointment types or veterinarians tend to run longer, and how frequently clients cancel, no-show , or reschedule their appointments. Veterinary hospitals can use this information to adjust staffing or scheduling protocols, add or remove time blocks, or create more flex-time for the team. Relatively minor changes in scheduling can help reduce client wait times and improve overall appointment efficiency, ensuring clients return for future visits.

3. Monitor client satisfaction

Surveys and feedback tools can provide a different kind of data from your typical reports and metrics. Who better to obtain client experience data than from the clients themselves? Survey results can provide context for traditional data analytics, helping you determine why a particular number is lower than ideal.

Client feedback can also shed light on how team member interactions influence retention and loyalty, and areas where extra training or support might strengthen retention. Soliciting and acting on client feedback also builds stronger relationships and demonstrates responsiveness to pet parent concerns, further improving retention even in the face of a suboptimal experience.

4. Assess preventive care compliance

Preventive care compliance metrics are datasets that show whether pets get routine services, such as vaccines, parasite prevention, or annual exams, on the recommended schedule. You can track this data by seeing how many clients book a visit after you send them a reminder. A high percentage indicates greater client engagement, while low compliance might signal the need for better outreach, price adjustments, or attention to the client experience.

5. Use data to develop retention strategies

Client retention has a direct tie to profitability, as it can be costly to acquire new clients, and loyalty is associated with more frequent visits and higher spending. Veterinary analytics surrounding client retention can guide the practice’s efforts to improve the client experience with things like loyalty programs, social media campaigns, and veterinary care payment plans.

6. Partner with veterinary analytics providers

Many practices have no idea where to start with veterinary analytics or lack the time to conduct in-depth analyses of the veterinary clinic’s complex operations. Leaders who feel pressured from all sides can still reap the benefits of data-driven insights for improving client retention by hiring an outside service to crunch the numbers for them. These providers can also benchmark performance against other clinics using their own databases to deliver actionable recommendations.

Data makes retention possible

Your veterinary practice produces endless data each day, week, month, and quarter. You can take advantage of this data to improve client retention by using your cloud-based veterinary practice management software reporting features or hiring a service to help you glean insights from the numbers.

Collecting data analytics information and using it to make data-driven decisions can help hospital leadership set attainable goals and enact long-term plans for growth. It all starts with stronger client relationships and better client retention.

Angela Beal, DVM

Angela Beal is a veterinarian in Columbus, Ohio who loves using her writing to help veterinarians live more fulfilling lives by helping make practice life more efficient and less stressful. Angela has a background in private practice and academia, and since 2020, she has worked full-time with Rumpus Writing and Editing, a veterinary-specific writing and editing company. Rumpus’ clients include veterinary practices and industry partners, including marketing companies, national corporations, consultants, and several international businesses. Learn more at rumpuswriting.com. The views and opinions in this piece are the authors own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of IDEXX.